To find a face behind this lipstick smile
by kleiner Indianer
Summary: Ginny's nerves burn with fear. Her heart flutters and is trapped in her panicked reaction, and because she does not want to see this face behind the lipstick smile anymore, she lifts the bucket and dumps Charity the ice water over her head. FEMSLASH


**To find a face behind this lipstick smile**

Ginny poked her porridge, looking upset. Someday, she would wipe the lipstick smile off her face. At some point she would finally break; break her, so that finally there would be more. No more of this run-of-the-mill smile, this indifference in her - everybody has worth, everybody is special, and hey, muggles, wizards, girls, boys, all are so equal: equal to her. She is always so nice. She's so cute. And everyone likes her and everybody smiles at her and she never looks back, really.

"Ginny, what has your porridge ever done to you?"

Mad glare.

Even Hermione likes her. She adored her class, although she learned nothing new. Ginny had regretted her decision to take Muggle Studies after her first class, and soon no longer went. The stuff they had learned just bored Ginny, and her smile had just hurt her too much. That smile for everyone, so indiscriminately; she never really saw her. Ginny was just one of many that she smiled at, with her red lipstick smile, and looked at with her proper, painted eyes; saw with her sealed openness. Now, at least, Ginny was the one who always skipped class.

Everybody likes her, although she's tough - worse than Snape, who, by the way, also likes her, probably just because he likes her lipstick smile. It's nice, yes, and her neckline is beautiful; her voluptuous figure, and her red fingernails and blonde updo hairstyles. Yes, she is beautiful, young, and had started at Hogwarts the year when Ginny was finally allowed there too. She'd replaced Quirrell; Quirrell, who had died.

And even that, she had handled well. Even that issue she managed to treat sensitively: she was so nice, nice, nice! She talked about muggle diseases, about death and the attitude towards life, which comes up when someone does not know that you can beat cancer with magic, or if they don't know that you can heal the nerve disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis with a belladonna potion, and the related treatments, within weeks.

Ginny's stomach fluttered. She sees how she gets up from the teacher's table, a little bit plump. She is always somewhat awkward; clumsy but beautiful, so, so beautiful. She watches her looking over the full Great Hall, her eyes following the elongated house tables, face to face, returning smiling greetings. She watches her eyes, blue eyes, that bore into her own. Her lipstick lips curl up into a smile. Ginny's stomach flutters.

Ron's elbow hits her painfully. "Gin, what's wrong with you? You've not eaten," he mumbles with his mouth full.

"I'm not hungry," she says and standing up.

They are both up: Professor Burbage talking to Professor Vector. Charity she's called - Charity Burbage. Charity, even her name is so disgusting sweet, so cute. It makes Ginny sick. Turning around with fluttering cape, she leaves the hall. She just wants to get away, to not see how she is so nice to everyone, knowing she is only one of many hanging on her lipstick smile; only one of many who blush childishly when she smiles at them, so sickeningly sweet.

Ginny makes for the castle entry. She still has time before the first lesson. The heat hits her in the face, announcing the hot day and the imminent end of the school year. It's almost summer. Automatically her feet choose the path past the three beech trees to the hazelnut shrub whose roots the students sometimes had to dig in the Herbology class. She collapses on the bench in front of it and everything falls off her; the anger, the desire, and her eyebrows fall... fall... fall... leaving pulsating headache and a thin film of sweat.

Now, Ginny is happy that she had taken her wand with her to breakfast, and pulls it out. She turns around and immediately detects red between the branches of the hazel, has to smile when she remembers that she had left her Herbology bucket there because she didn't wanted to be in a stuffy greenhouse to peel roots; instead she had spent the lesson casting figures of smoke from her wand. But now, the bucket had a purpose.

She crawls under branches, cursing when her hair got stuck, and then she pulls the red bucket out and sits down again. She focuses and shortly thereafter shoots a jet of water from her wand, down into the bucket. Then she makes the water just a little colder. A thin crust of ice forms on the surface and satisfied Ginny places the now heavy bucket on the mossy ground, takes her shoes and stockings off and plunges her heels through the thin layer of ice to finally receive welcome coolness.

"Miss Weasley, here you are."

Startled, Ginny raises her head, knowing this round voice that fits so well with the beautiful face. Her anger blazes again, she flares her nostrils. Her look is so hard; harder still when she comes so close that she can smell her. She can smell how warm and soft and gentle she smells; how warm, soft, and gentle she has to be. _Oh Merlin._

Professor Burbage sits down next to Ginny without asking and slightly touches her bare knee.

"That's smart," she smiles, looking at the bucket with the ice water.

"Hm." Ginny does not trust her voice. Why is she here? Here, alone with her?

"I still think it's too bad that you do not come to my class. But I suppose that you only took it for your father's sake, right? I know him from when we were in school. "

"Hm." Ginny slowly turns red, desiring so much that she would go away; that she would ignore her, treat her the same as everyone else, and to punish her for the lies, and she would stop being so damn sweet.

Nice, hot, oh Merlin, she's so hot.

Professor Burbage sighs. Charity, _oh Merlin_, she is so beautiful. So, so beautiful with her lovely round face and her red lips, so beautiful with the dimples and - Ginny shakes her head.

"Miss Weasley, I-" she clears her throat, "Ginevra. I think it's really a pity that you won't talk to me. Have I done something wrong? Or is it just because your father and I were been friends?"

Ginny is silent, does not trust her mouth. She is afraid that her lips would blab out how wonderful she is and how great she smells and how much she-

"Ginevra, I would really like to be a mentor for you. I have to confess ... " she stutters, and Ginny can not help but look up. Oh Merlin, she blushes and looks so cute, so damn beautiful.

She takes a deep breath, straightens up and meets Ginny's eyes. Even darker blushing she continues: "I have to confess that I am very attracted to you, and I fear that you know this and therefore avoid me. I ... if you are afraid I might do something that is not appropriate, then please calm down. I would never violate the student-teacher boundary. I'll never bother you with my feelings. But please, it hurts me very much to see you always looking so sad ... "

Ginny's skin is covered in goosebumps. Her heart is racing. Her head feels like a vacuum. The seconds rush. They rush to her heart; rush at a crawl. The seconds let Charity's hand come closer and when a bird lands in the bush behind them loud chirping, they both jerk.

The alertness follows like a slap in Ginny's face. Ginny startles and almost knocks over the bucket that her feet are still inside. She gets out and before she gives into her flight instinct, she gives into her desire to look into Charity's face – again a slap.

She has managed to wipe the lipstick smile from her face; has managed that the so carefully painted eyes leaked, and mascara smudged. She has made her cry; has made that she no longer smiles, she is no longer perfect as a mask.

Ginny sees the face behind the mask, and panic fills her.

Fear in contemplation of this burning in her body, the great fear to be no match for bringing back a smile to the lipstick lips, and to let her warm breath steady, or to give her warm love. She's afraid of being alive, because life leads to death, for Muggles as well as for wizards, and if she let Charity give her love, she could lose it again.

Ginny's nerves burn with fear. Her heart flutters and is trapped in her panicked reaction, and because she does not want to see this face behind the lipstick smile anymore, she lifts the bucket and dumps Charity the ice water over her head.


End file.
